Real Estate Investor

[George Dai]

A long time investor in Stock/Bond/Option, recently got interested in real estate investment. Purchased our first investment house in 2011. Since 2014, I started investing into real estate private equity opportunities and since the beginning of 2016 I invested in real estate crowdfunding through RealtyShares, RealtyMogul, CrowdStreet, PeerStreet, LendingHome, RealCrowd, Fundrise, iFunding, AcquireRealEstate, PatchOfLand, for over 30 deals in residential and commercial. Currently exploring RoofStocks, HomeUnion, ArborCrowd, Infobrij, and GROUNDFLOOR. Would like to share experience with like-mind investors in real estate crowdfunding investments.

[George Dai]

Hello @Saul L. and @Ian Ippolito and @Account Closed

Thank you very much for your greetings! Good to know there are people like me interested in crowdfunding. The reason I am experiencing so many platforms is twofold. First, I want to experience the strength/weakness of each platform so I can eventually select a few good ones that can sustain any real estate market turmoils. Second, I want to be able to share my experience with friends and even thinking of writing a book.

So far, my #1 choice is RealtyShares, due to their consistency in delivering dividends/interests on time and the number of deals available. I also like PeerStreet due to their availability of very short term loans, such as 1-month to 6-months, as I am not sure how long the housing market can sustain. I do see foreclosures coming, as a matter of fact, half of my PatchOfLand holdings are in some sort of defaults. Originally I ranked PoL as a top platform, due to their pre-funding. Unfortunately, I entirely discard it now. PeerStreet and LendingHome would probably be better choice for debt investments. I also read stories about Fundrise and iFunding getting into legal issues, and there were management shakeup at both companies. So I am kind of keeping myself away from these, although I like Fundrise's eREITs due to their tax advantages to me. RoofStocks and HomeUnion are the top two platforms for the turn-key solution, but I want to wait until the housing market comes down. At that time, a direct ownership of some rental properties would be very beneficial, as you can leverage your investment at relatively higher ratios. BTW, I do invest most money in CrowdStreet and RealtyMogul will be my future focus.

Presently I am biased to commercial, as the housing market comes down and interest rate goes up, individual flippers will feel the pain harder than managers of professionally managed commercial properties. I am hoping most of my commercial RE investments can overcome the upcoming real estate downturn. As for sponsors, I run into a sponsor called Virtua Partners (http://www.virtuapartners.com/) with whom I have met several times. They are dealing with a niche market called tenant in common (TIC), where owners of commercial properties (mostly officers) purchased office buildings before 2009 downturn and ran into problems (equity deeply under-water) or had very bad property managers. These guys come in to help out by restructuring their capital stack, bring in new capital and their own property management, proper remodel, increase the occupancy and eventually exit the investment. Their first fund returned over 100% IRR. They have just finished their second fund, and starting their third fund. It is opportunistic, so with the highest risks, but I trust them. Something you might want to consider, as a small percentage investment.

Good luck guys!